Absolute power corrupts absolutely

Everton 1 Spurs 1

A sense of acceptance washes over me as yet another weekend passes. Another convincing Arsenal win is notched and the gap between them and City looms large. I daren’t even look at the gap between us and them. Yet, acceptance washes over me; it’s freeing, empowering qualities. As I bask in this notion, snuggling in the knowing comfort of yet another failed season, a simple question presents itself…

Are we witnessing Spurs at their most Spursy?

Hear me out for a moment.

We have manager who has manifested his own sacking, a director of football who appears to be on the run from the law (hiding out in motels), a caretaker manager who has previously served a lengthy ban for alleged match fixing and his assistance (to the regional manager), who is younger than most of the players in the team. All this in a season where our head of fitness passed away. Lasagne-gate was impressive, but surely this takes the biscotti.

I’d never been to Goodison but always fancied it. Everton are a proper club and if I’m honest, I’ve always had a soft spot for them. In many ways they’re the Spurs of the North West. Always the best man, never the groom. A club with support fuelled by gallows humour and I respect that (I wonder why).

However, times have changed in football and no matter how bad things may seem to get under the rule of General Levy, spare a thought for those tortured Evertonions and what they’ve been through. Not least, the fact that their irksome neighbours have been at their very best during this most recent spell in the doldrums. So, I’m happy to be heading to Liverpool on a Monday to visit this famous old ground before it becomes the latest stadium laid to rest in the cemetery of hallowed turf. Especially as I’ve managed to engineer work meetings in the city around the fixture, expensing the whole trip. Truly a thing of beauty in its own right.

My travelling companion is Jam, a man whose relationship with Spurs is almost as fascinatingly complex as he is. With the demeanour of an angry North London Larry David, Jam makes his return from a short lived boycott of Tottenham Hotspur. He had been protesting Conte and the style of football played, storming out at half time during the home fixture against West Ham (it was 0-0 at the time and Spurs went on to win 2-0). We all support Tottenham in our own individual way. His is an attitude I’ve occasionally tried on for size.

As we hop out of a taxi that has gotten us as close to the ground as physically possible, we open the cab doors to find ‘SPURS DIE’ painted on the wall in front of us. I scale the fence to get a better photo and hear a Scouse voice eerily close to my right ear, calmly say the words ‘welcome to the parish boys’.

We chuckle uncomfortably and swiftly move on. As we enter Goodison, I’m flooded with memories of the old shelf entrance, narrow entry holes with turnstiles clinking, hundred year old brickwork covered in coat upon coat of royal blue paint. Yet inside the ground it’s even better, it’s more Kenilworth Road than White Hart Lane, and the steps and seats in the away end really do appear to be Victorian. The Spurs travelling support were in fantastic voice and the vibe felt somewhat celebratory, with this, the first post Conte game. There was an optimism about what we might see and the players didn’t disappoint in the opening exchanges.

We dominated the possession and appeared to be attempting to play a slightly more offensive style of football. Unfortunately this didn’t last, perhaps the Antonio muscle memory isn’t too easy to shake or maybe surprise surprise Stellini really did believe in all The Godfather’s methods. The game played out as this fixture has for most of my life, two would-be mid table teams thrashing out a pointless point. Kane scored from the spot, a shot which felt like our only on target during the entire game. There were of course a couple red cards that could have gone either way and then obviously Everton’s lumbersome centre back Michael Keane scored the goal of his life from 30 yards in the final minute of the game to level things up. Probably a fair result in reflection.

The decision to sack Conte was in the end inevitable, Levy had no choice. The decision to keep Stellini and the whole 25+ staff seemed insane to me. Perhaps I will be proven wrong but Tottenham were actually worse here than in previous games and the substitutions (refusal to play Danjuma, insisting in bringing on Sanchez) and the inability to put a 10 man team in the bottom 3 to the sword had all the trademarks of Conte’s Spurs.

So far nothing has changed on the pitch.

Stellini and Mason need to own this situation and the players need to step up. Let’s have this right, this performance was nothing short of pathetic.

As I take a deep breath, step back from the weekly firefighting and gain a little perspective on this almighty Spursy-ness we have now entangled ourselves in, I ponder who is really accountable? Lord Acton wasn’t talking about Daniel Levy when he pronounced ‘Absolute power corrupts absolutely’ but he was observing how one man’s sense of morality can lessen when his power increases. However Thomas Fuller famously penned ‘the darkest hour of the night comes just before the dawn’.

Perhaps both are truth for Levy’s Spurs.